When Holly Kelly moves from Miami to the lavish Laguna Palms neighborhood, seeking community and friendship-with her husband and rambunctious triplets in tow-she finds it in spades. She is soon drawn into the intimate lives of almost everyone in their beachfront cul-de-sac, especially her three new ride-or-dies: Gina, Greta, and Chloe. But when the neighborhood's holiday fruitcake exchange takes a dark turn, the bodies start piling up. The deaths seem like accidents-at first.

When Aunt Adeline goes missing, it is up to her niece, Charlotte, to uncover the clues of her deeply hidden family secrets and the town she calls home.

It was supposed to be a fun weekend at our family cabin. I was going to surprise my husband, Mike, with a small get-together for his 40th birthday. Something is wrong, though. Mike isn’t himself lately. He goes out often and by himself, leaving me and our young son. Our happy marriage is fading away, and I don’t know why. This weekend is just what's needed to cheer him up. It’s what we need for us. When I get to the cabin and set up, I hear sounds coming from the basement. That’s when I see her. A young woman tied up and scared.

Emma and I were inseparable. Growing up, we did everything together. Until the unspeakable night that everything changed. So I ran away—from my mom, my sister, everything I knew, and Emma and I haven’t spoken since. My sister, Lily, was at the beach that night too. She hasn’t been able to utter a single word since. That was 10 years ago. Now, Mom and Lily need my help, and I realize I can’t run from the past forever. I’m ready to talk to Emma, ready to try to move on.

When Detective Billie Ann Wilde receives a desperate call that five-year-old Emma Wilson is missing, she rushes to the family home. But inside the picture-perfect house surrounded by Florida marshlands, she finds no children’s clothes or toys, no photos of the innocent child Emma’s mother Marissa describes. Billie suspects Marissa Wilson is hiding from someone.

Marcella Middleton has always tried to live a good life, but after losing her job, her boyfriend, and her home, she's tired of playing by the rules. But she has a plan. She's going to trick her way into Carmel and Rufus's home, that sickeningly perfect couple with the amazing, renovated farmhouse they're always boasting about in those glamorous lifestyle magazines. She'll tell them she only wants to stay for a few days, even though she never intends to leave. She has no idea the house is haunted by the ghosts of the past. Or that the couple have a sinister hidden agenda of their own.

My mother is obsessed with every detail of my wedding–controlling my dress, my ring, my happiness. But when the day finally comes, will she really let me go?

Taking a deep breath of the fresh, leafy air, Abigail promises herself: Today she is going to make her parents accept her future husband Pete’s family. She’s planned three days away from it all in a beautiful, forested nature reserve. Out here, with almost no one else around, their families will have nowhere to run. They might have clashed from the moment they met—with their stark differences in backgrounds and personalities—but now, Abigail thinks, they will have to get along.

When I step into the elevator that sweltering morning, I barely notice the woman standing next to me. She seems out of place, with her floaty linen clothes in a building full of suits. But that’s none of my business. A minute later, there’s a sudden jerk. The elevator stops. The lights go out.

It feels like all the air has been knocked out of me. My best friend is dead, killed at her own daughter’s birthday party. All I want to do is run into my husband’s loving arms. But he’s in handcuffs, covered in her blood. His voice quivers, almost sobbing as officers put him in the police car. ‘You don’t think I did this, do you? I was trying to save her.’ At first, I’m sure he couldn’t have done it. The man I love wouldn’t hurt anyone. But as I try to prove that he didn’t murder Lucy, secrets begin unravelling…

Detective Mary Joe Court sleeps with a shotgun beside her bed and a lovable bull mastiff at her feet. For the past 12 years, she’s hidden from a nightmarish past, but with every passing day, her scars fade, and her heart grows lighter. Now, for the first time in her life, she looks forward to her future. She’s happy. Then she finds the body. Someone shot the victim in her chest and left her to die in a cheap motel. Joe knew her well. She grew up with her. They were sisters, of a sort.

When I reach my husband, we kiss against the perfect backdrop of the shimmering turquoise sea. The congregation claps, and I turn to smile at them. Then my smile freezes. I see him. Sitting there among my loved ones. An uninvited guest who knows the truth about me and the terrible thing that happened 10 years ago. The man who won’t ever let me be happy. And as he steps forward, asking for everyone’s attention, my legs buckle. I know he wants to destroy my perfect new life.

My husband is lying. The minute he came home with alcohol on his breath and unable to look me in the eyes I knew it. We used to be in love–the intense ‘I can’t be without you for a second’ kind. Where it hurts deep to be apart. But now, we’re the couple that keep secrets from each other. We hide the truth. He thought I wouldn’t find out. I’m a detective–it’s literally my job to uncover clues and solve mysteries. I know what he did. And now I’m sitting here, in a police interview, being asked the question ‘did you kill her?’ to which I utter one life-shattering word: ‘yes.’

Detective Sam Helsdown hasn’t seen his daughter Zoe in two years and he’s excited and more than a little nervous to be at the airport picking her up for a visit. She’s 10 years old and has flown on her own for the first time. Flight BA631 from Athens has already landed and soon a trickle of people begins entering Arrivals. Among them is a little girl who runs towards him, head down, and throws herself into his arms saying ‘Daddy!’. But then he looks at her properly. This is not Zoe. This is not his daughter.

Twenty years ago Ed Finch – America’s most notorious serial killer – used the Bay Area as his hunting ground. Now, his daughter Margot is a homicide detective with the San Francisco Police Department who has spent her whole life trying to forget who she is. But her daddy won’t let her forget. When Margot receives a phone call from his lawyer, she learns that Ed is back – transferred to death row at San Quentin. And her father has a message for her: he’s willing to disclose some long-held secrets. But there’s a catch. She has to visit him.